The Katogi Averoff winery is in Metsovo, a mountain village built some 1100 metres above sea-level. The oldest parts of the winery date back to 1973, when work began on a new building required to cover the company’s ever-increasing production needs. Today, after eight separate extensions and renovations, the winery is equipped with all the contemporary equipment required for producing and bottling wine.
Its cellars can boast over 1200 oak barrels in which our red wines mature, while the winery shop offers rare and collectible bottles of wine for sale from its 1974 vintage on.
A guided tour of the winery employs a range of audio-visual media to offer the visitor an original introduction to wine production and the history of the winery, and is rounded off with tastings of a selection of Katogi Averoff wines.
History
Katogi Averoff began life in the late nineteen fifties, when Evangelos Averoff planted Greece’s first Cabernet Sauvignon vines on the precipitous slopes of Mount Pindus and bottled the wine now known as Katogi Averoff in the "katogi" (lower storey) of his home in Metsovo.
"French vines in Greek mountain soil" read the label he lovingly designed for that first wine. Part of a wide-ranging effort, a vast work-in-progress aiming at stimulating economic and cultural development in the region, Averoff's wine-making activities were borne of a vision: transforming Pindus' abandoned slopes into vineyards and reviving a viticultural tradition which had flourished during the 18th and 19th centuries.
And that is precisely what he did. With the help of experts from Greece and France, Averoff created one of Greece’s most celebrated and elevated vineyards, built a small winery on the outskirts of Metsovo, and establishing Katogi SA in 1989. But Katogi’s red wine, which quickly made a name for itself both in Greece and abroad, where it won a number of international awards, was just the first step in the company’s master plan: releasing the vast potential of the Greek vineyard by promoting the cultivation of native Greek grapes and blending traditional Greek and international varieties. The company was also one of the first Greek wine-makers to embrace authentic methods of growing and making wine.
Evangelos Averoff died in 1990, but Katogi Averoff SA continued to grow both rapidly and in accordance with the philosophy of its founder under its managing director, Sotiris Ioannou. New vineyards were planted around Metsovo, and the company continued to experiment with new grape varieties and new blends of wine. The winery was brought up-to-date through a series of extensions, and the company increased its total production and expanded its national and internationally distribution. Katogi Averoff SA was now firmly established as a dynamic young company with solid foundations, high-quality products and a contemporary, forward-looking approach. It was in this spirit of taking on new challenges for the 21st century that the decision was taken to merge with Strofilia SA in 2001 and found the new company: Katogi & Strofilia SA.
